Virtualization may be utilized in a device to subdivide physical processing resources into different “virtual” processing devices. Virtual machines (VM) may be loaded into the device to emulate the operation of standalone devices. VMs may operate collaboratively to perform a task or individually to perform a variety of different operations. For example, in certain virtualization architectures one VM may have access to control physical resources in a device (e.g., a network adapter), while other VMs may be provided with limited control features. This approach may be sufficient for cloud computing (e.g., including at least one server accessible via a network such as the Internet) wherein the operational focus may be primarily on data processing and storage. However, some applications such as virtual telecommunications company (Telco) networks may employ certain virtual network functions (VNFs) such as, for example, virtualized proxy servers, firewalls, routers, etc. The performance of these VNFs may benefit substantially from being able to directly access physical resource and configuration registers. Direct access may avoid latency that may be experienced when accessing these configurations via the host operating system (OS), thereby helping promote the use of standard servers within virtual networking environments such as Network Function Virtualization (NFV) or Software Defined Networking (SDN) scenarios.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.